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Friday, November 2, 2012

Kids have been having Teddy's boo boos fixed at the Regional's Teddy Bear Fair for 21 years. Regional Hospital Foundation Director Victoria Clarke tells CHSJ News when kids come through it has a lasting impact.

She says if the child has to go to the hospital the next time for any kind of specimen collection they know its quick with a slight pinch and over.

Kids will notice a fire truck, ambulance and police car at the main doors of the Regional.The entertainment includes Bernard the Magician and Kidsing and the kids can choose a healthy lunch for themselves.The Irving Oil Teddy Bear Fair is free but you do need to bring a Teddy Bear and it runs tomorrow at the Regional Hospital from 9am to 3pm.

Everyone's heard of "The World's Greatest Magician", Harry Houdini--but did you know he had a major connection to the Port City?

Bruce MacNab is the authour of The Metamorphosis: The Apprenticeship of Harry Houdini. He tells CHSJ News the great escape artist came to Saint John as a young man and stayed here for a period of eleven days.

Houdini and his wife, Bessie, were traveling with the Marco Magic Company and stayed in what is now the Admiral Beatty in 1896. According to McNab, it was here in Saint John at the city's Lunatic Asylum that Harry Houdini first encountered the straight jacket which was later incorporated into his most famous escape routine. Houdini challenged the Saint John Police Force to find a device that could restrain him. He managed to escape from a special leather restraint known as the Dreaded Saint John Maniac Cuff, although it took him several minutes.

Houdini also traveled extensively throughout Nova Scotia in the same period.

He died 86 years ago this week, on Halloween 1926.

Bruce MacNab's book on his early life in Atlantic Canada is available from Goose Lane editions here, at the New Brunswick Museum in Market Square, and select local bookstores.

The President of the Maritime Bus Network is confident he can make a go of intercity bus service in the region where Acadian had trouble. Mike Cassidy concedes there are challenges.

He says ridership in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia used to be in 2005 close to 500,000 passenger trips where now it's about 250,000 passenger trips.

Cassidy tells CHSJ News university students are being asked what kind of service they would like to have along with promotions, pricing incentives, changing the schedules and making the transfers more seamless will build up ridership.

A young driver appeared have struck the curb and ticket dispensing machine in the garage and flipped his vehicle on its side. No one was injured but emergency crews were called to the scene to divert traffic.

We've received a tip that Bank of Montreal customers are running into difficulties accessing their accounts today.The issues are effecting both ATMs and services at the branch locations, meaning a lot of people have been left stranded and unable to pay.The service outage has been in effect since 10:30 this morning. Customers are getting an error message saying these are network issues. No word on when service will resume.

Unemployment in New Brunswick has jumped to a whopping 11.6% this month....with thousands out of work all over province the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council saying we need to work on growing jobs in new sectors like renewable energy, bioscience, and wood processing.

Still, APEC Senior Economist Fred Bergman tells CHSJ News it's unlikely that we'll see much growth in the coming years.Bergman says despite the high unemployment we still have a shortage of skilled workers throughout Canada, which is obviously a problem. The jobless rate in Saint John actually declined a bit from 9.1 to 9 per cent.

We hear a lot of complaints about young people leaving the city; however, a a new conference aimed at kids ages 12-19 is exploring ways to keep teens engaged in the community. The so-called community engagement bootcamp sponsored by Youth SJ will give kids a crash course in how to make a difference.

Resource Center for Youth Director June Breau Nason tells CHSJ News their voices need to be heard because the ideas they come up with are creative and intelligent.70 kids will be taking part in the conference which includes educational workshops and activities at the resource Center for Youth and the Glen Carpenter Center.